{"id":9859,"date":"2025-08-28T14:14:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T19:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=9859"},"modified":"2025-08-28T14:14:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T19:14:34","slug":"lost-in-the-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=9859","title":{"rendered":"LOST IN THE CHAOS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>One of RJ Snell&#8217;s earlier books was one of my favorite books the year I read it. It can be found here:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Acedia and Its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"625\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"clipboard-write\" style=\"max-width:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/read.amazon.com\/kp\/card?asin=B01I0QX6XS\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>I know it sounds abstract and dense, but it is beautifully written and worth the effort.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Snell&#8217;s latest book is <em>Lost in the Chaos: Immanence, Despair, Hope.\u00a0<\/em>Immanence (popularized by Charles Taylor) is basically the idea of living from a frame of reference that is only horizontal. There is no transcendence or at least you can&#8217;t be sure that there is.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Snell&#8217;s book is divided into three sections: a description of the &#8220;immanent frame,&#8221; how people try to find meaning bereft of the transcendental, and last, where hope can be found.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I found the first two sections brilliant and incisively argued. Snell&#8217;s description is one of the best I&#8217;ve read.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the third section. Snell clearly sought to be rigorous and honest in how to best address our malaise, but I&#8217;m afraid his rather dense philosophizing got in the way of making this work.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I&#8217;m still very glad I read this book!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lost in the Chaos: Immanence, Despair, Hope\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"625\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"clipboard-write\" style=\"max-width:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/read.amazon.com\/kp\/card?asin=B0CW1GKL3H\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of RJ Snell&#8217;s earlier books was one of my favorite books the year I read it. It can be found here: I know it sounds abstract and dense, but it is beautifully written and worth the effort.\u00a0 Snell&#8217;s latest book is Lost in the Chaos: Immanence, Despair, Hope.\u00a0Immanence (popularized by Charles Taylor) is basically [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,43,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-christianity","category-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9860,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9859\/revisions\/9860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}